Jared
Holes connects every narrative in a deeply impressive way. While extremely predictable, I don't think the story is expecting the audience to be surprised.
Stanley Yelnats is an amazing protagonist. Not only is he a great inspiration for the audience, but he's also a character that the children reading this will greatly relate to. He's realistically written in a world that is anything but. He grounds the story in a way that makes it a lot more powerful. His inherent goodness matches that of most children, without feeling like someone written by an adult to make kids feel bad for not living up to his standards.
Holes works incredibly well as a metaphor for the inherently cruel and unjust American prison system. While I certainly wish Sachar dove further into the way race plays into the topic of incarceration, but that might have ruined the pacing. There's only so much you can talk about in a book for children.
Holes perfectly exemplifies the pointlessness of prison labor and the inherent slavery involved in it. And he manages to do so in a way that children can understand, even if it makes them uncomfortable. There's so much weight to everything that happens, especially once Zero and Stanley run away. We see children grasp with their potential deaths at the hands of a deeply cruel system that punishes them for, at best, non-violent shoplifting, and at worst, a crime they didn't commit.
Yeah, it's sad. Yeah, it's brutal. But kids need to hear this. Kids need to understand that our prison system is a modern version of slavery. Zero says he's willing to die before he digs another hole. And that mentality is far too common among prisoners. Because death is preferable to working for slave wages for God knows how long.
Children need some darkness in their stories if we're ever going to teach them about the horrors of modern society. And there are ways to do it in a heartfelt manner. Holes truly earns its happy ending, because in the pages before that, it lets readers grasp with it's darkness. Holes opens it's audience to critical thinking throughout the story, and even if the good guys win in the end, the prison system isn't ever fixed. Stanley and Zero make it out, but the rest of the kids are going back into system.
Holes understands what it's talking about. Despite jumping around four different generations, it never feels jarring. The flashbacks all feel like stories Stanley is telling himself to prevent pure boredom while doing his slave labor. That's effective flashback writing.
Holes connects every narrative in a deeply impressive way. While extremely predictable, I don't think the story is expecting the audience to be surprised.
Stanley Yelnats is an amazing protagonist. Not only is he a great inspiration for the audience, but he's also a character that the children reading this will greatly relate to. He's realistically written in a world that is anything but. He grounds the story in a way that makes it a lot more powerful. His inherent goodness matches that of most children, without feeling like someone written by an adult to make kids feel bad for not living up to his standards.
Holes works incredibly well as a metaphor for the inherently cruel and unjust American prison system. While I certainly wish Sachar dove further into the way race plays into the topic of incarceration, but that might have ruined the pacing. There's only so much you can talk about in a book for children.
Holes perfectly exemplifies the pointlessness of prison labor and the inherent slavery involved in it. And he manages to do so in a way that children can understand, even if it makes them uncomfortable. There's so much weight to everything that happens, especially once Zero and Stanley run away. We see children grasp with their potential deaths at the hands of a deeply cruel system that punishes them for, at best, non-violent shoplifting, and at worst, a crime they didn't commit.
Yeah, it's sad. Yeah, it's brutal. But kids need to hear this. Kids need to understand that our prison system is a modern version of slavery. Zero says he's willing to die before he digs another hole. And that mentality is far too common among prisoners. Because death is preferable to working for slave wages for God knows how long.
Children need some darkness in their stories if we're ever going to teach them about the horrors of modern society. And there are ways to do it in a heartfelt manner. Holes truly earns its happy ending, because in the pages before that, it lets readers grasp with it's darkness. Holes opens it's audience to critical thinking throughout the story, and even if the good guys win in the end, the prison system isn't ever fixed. Stanley and Zero make it out, but the rest of the kids are going back into system.
Holes understands what it's talking about. Despite jumping around four different generations, it never feels jarring. The flashbacks all feel like stories Stanley is telling himself to prevent pure boredom while doing his slave labor. That's effective flashback writing.